“Rob decided at that moment to tell everyone in his life that his name was now Cricket. ‘I want to be Cricket with everyone,’ he told Silas.”

When Cricket tells Silas, the person who gave him his new nickname, that he wants to be “Cricket” with everyone, he effectively transforms his own name into a synecdoche for the affectionate way Silas looks at him. By resisting any association with his mother’s abusive partner, Cricket establishes the novel’s preoccupation with self-definition, a journey that he will undergo throughout his entire life.

“The fact of him is like the fact of bad weather. Snow, rain, hail. He is an element outside of yourself—something you prepare yourself for. If you went out in bad weather, you’d put on a coat, and then move through the bad weather, right?”

Silas’s advice provides Cricket with an important psychological tool for survival. Silas’s metaphor compares Robert (and by extension all other threats Cricket will face throughout his life) to ephemeral weather phenomena, emphasizing the fact that while he is threatening in the moment, his presence will eventually come to pass. Silas advises Cricket to weather the discomfort of Robert’s presence while he can, but also to know that he will one day get to live outside his dread of him.

“This was, he realized, the essence of art. It was precise. A word like ‘ornate’ was thrilling in its precision—it was far more accurate and specific than a word like ‘fancy,’ which was overly broad in this context.”

Eggers emphasizes Cricket’s recognition of a kindred spirit in Pia by contrasting the word “ornate” against its synonym “fancy” to highlight the nuances between the two words. Inasmuch as Cricket instinctively knows that the art process involves hundreds of decisions that result in a greater output, the recognition of Pia’s precise word choice signals her ability to recognize him in ways he cannot see himself.